2024 Theme: Sun Wind Water

Each year we orient our collaborative installations, workshops, and Saturday night art show around a theme. We are pleased to announce for 2024 our theme is Sun Wind Water — inviting participants to explore the use of renewable energies in their projects.

As we consider a future that is more ecologically resilient with clean energy, we ask artists, designers, and creative technologists to explore projects that are both technological — with sound, movement, and lighting — yet unplugged from a power grid. In other words, how can we integrate renewable energies into our art, using technologies such as solar panels, wind turbines, and water batteries? Or perhaps more directly, how might we leverage the sun, wind, and water as creative mediums that animate our installations?

How it Works

For our group show, we provide a basic framework around the theme, and then recruit artists, technologists, scientists, and designers to take on aspects of that theme, playing with technologically-infused, sensing, interactive and self-illuminated elements.

In the style of hackathons, you may bring your own piece to work on, you may join other emergent collaborations, or you may just show up to enjoy the show. Projects are shared during our Saturday night art show and party, which is open to the public.

Participating artists and technology creatives may include light, sound, video, performance, landscaping, architectural elements, in addition to visual art, however we encourage all projects incorporate an electronic, sensing, interactive, or self-illuminated component, to be experienced at night.

Art grants are available to $500 for material project support or subsidized tickets, learn more here. The deadline is Friday April 26.

Workshops for 2021

For those of you familiar with hackathons, we have a few workshops and projects at Electric Sky this year that are going to be right up your alley!

Make Your Own Fortune Teller Friday, July 30th 8:30pm – 10:30pm

Fortune Teller

You and/or your team will build a fortune-telling arcade machine with your unique charm! We will provide a free kit with basic electronic ingredients so you can display messages (LCD screen + arduino), accept coins, and press buttons! You bring a box, suitcase, or whatever to contain your magic device. Show off your project in our group show on Saturday. Learn more here! Hosted by Josh Lind. There are only 8 kits available, so email Josh at joshuaklind@gmail.com to save your spot.

Futbol Player Bot

Robot Futbol League — Python Code Competition! All day project, Fri Jul 29 – Sat July 30

We provide the autonomous robots, the ball, and the arena for 1 vs 1 football — you provide the code! Take our basic code for guiding the robots to play the game, and add your own algorithms for improved game performance. The best code wins! Learn more and see starter code here: https://github.com/littlebee/robot-futbol-league. Hosted by Bee Wilkerson

Robot Futbol Play Arena
Virtual Painting using Tiltbrush

Painting in Virtual Reality, Saturday, July 31st, 10am – noon

In this workshop we will first provide a demo of 3D/virtual painting in Tiltbrush (using Oculus).  You will then complete a general tutorial for using Oculus 2, and then have the opportunity to experiment with the VR painting tools in a collaborative virtual space.  After the workshop, you can sign up for more extended time in the TiltBrush studio space. Hosted by Genevieve Tremblay.

Make your Own ZZZ Operation Man Game (Kid friendly) — Saturday July 31st, noon – 1:30pm

DIY “Operation Man” Dog

In this workshop you’ll draw your own image such as a dog, robot, or fairy, and then wire up tweezers, an LED and a buzzer just like the Operation Man game. This project is a good start for learning about electronic circuits, ideal for 10-16 year olds, or adults who want to play. Hosted by Shelly Farnham. Email shelly@totallylegitllc.com to reserve your spot, otherwise it is first come first serve.

Thanks and Wrapping Up 2017

This years’ Electric Sky was a resounding success and we cannot thank everyone enough for your active participation!  (For more imagery, check out our summarizing slide show or  see our video).
Our primary goal with this event is to foster the community of creatives at the intersection of art and technology in the Pacific Northwest – building collaborative relationships, developing best practices, engaging in life-long learning, and inspiring new innovation.  Our secondary goal is to share the art generated by the event with the public, and in particular with the small rural communities of the Skykomish River valley.

Reactive Path

Reactive Path

Ripples

Ripples

creativity lab

creativity lab

CNC Workshop

CNC Workshop

This year we organized our collaborative efforts around the “Wondering Woods” theme, exploring what if the woods could talk?  What if they can sense you and respond?  As a part of this effort we hosted a pre-event workshop instructing artists and tech creatives how to use sensors, and at the event we had a CNC router workshop and a project-based workshop for kids to engage with the environment and integrate sound into a group installation.  We also hosted an open creativity lab to encourage emergent on-site collaboration in the style of hackathons.  A total of 71 art and tech creatives attended, including 12 kids, and 40-50 visitors from the region came to our opening night party.

Bluuume

Bluuume

Time Vortex

Time Vortex

The Lordly Ones

The Lordly Ones

The Lordly Ones Closeup

The Lordly Ones Closeup

This was our third year, and thanks in large part to our grant from 4Culture, which we used to fund new projects, we observed the depths of the interdisciplinary collaborations and the quality of the art achieve a new level.  Electric Sky is evolving into not only an art and tech retreat, but a new works incubator.   We are very happy to report that we have been invited as a collective to return to both Lusio and Arts-a-Glow to share our Wondering Woods installation with thousands more in Seattle and Burien.

Opening Night party

Opening Night party

Electric Sky

Electric Sky

Do you want to see more? Check out our summarizing slide show.
Part I shows overview of the Electric Sky event, and Part II shows the “Wondering Woods” art.
Some of the art was animated, interactive, or included sound, so we made a 2-minute video with some highlights.  See our video.

In the Lab

In the Lab

Life-long Learning and Mentorship

Life-long Learning and Mentorship

Path Lighting

Path Lighting

Borealis Break

Borealis Break

Here are some more photos shared by community members:
Shelly Farnham.
Jole Sack.
If you are excited by what you see, why wait until next year to get involved? Check out our community page.

Call for Participation: Wondering Woods

Sensor Mote Swarm

Sensor Mote Swarm

Call for Artists & Tech Creatives “Wondering Woods” Grant Proposals

We our focusing this years’ group collaboration around the theme “The Wondering Woods”.  Help us explore the question: what if the trees could talk?  What if the forest was a living, conscious, interactive being?  We have small grants (200$-1000$) and free tickets to support participating creatives.  If interested, please learn more about the theme and check out our application.  Due date is May 1st.

Seeking Workshop Proposals

What would you like to learn?  What would you like to share?  If you want to propose a workshop please email shelly at totallylegitllc dot com.

Seeking Volunteers

Get involved!  We are looking for help with our group meal, signs, promotion, reception, opening party bar, path layout, and so forth.  You’ll meet great people, and active volunteers get a free ticket!  please email shelly at totallylegitllc dot com to ask about how you might want to volunteer.

Electric Sky Mad Fun, Thanks and Wrap Up

It was an amazing event, thanks so much to the 70+ people who joined the fun at Electric Sky!  Our creativity lab was a madhouse of electronics, laptops, arduinos, LEDs, lasers, 3D printers, etc., mixed in with the more traditional array of arts & crafts supplies.   The weather was beautiful and extremely hot, so folks were excited to intersperse their art & tech “projecting” with relaxing moments splashing around in the river, and people were working into the wee hours of the morning in the creativity lab.

As a community event it would not have been possible without everyone’s help, including set up, take down, the workshop organizers, the logo and web design, the group meal, clean up, etc..– so thanks so much to everyone, including the Town of Skykomish for letting us use their beautiful ball park, and the Totally Legit art group for letting us use their electronics/crafts supplies!

  • Josh and Chris’ 3D printer workshop generated a lot of interest — for those interested Josh posted his notes in our public Facebook page, find them here.
  • Shelly’s full set of photos are posted in an Electric Sky private Facebook group (since there were many kids at the event) ask to join and check them out here.
  • Jose Sack posted some great photos here.
  • Be sure to check out Katerina’s “Exostesis” video.
  • On the whole, people really enjoyed the experience so we will definitely do it again next year!

Reactive Lamps prototyping progress

Dave Hull and Dan Hull (sons of artist Beanne Hull, the main organizer of Sky Art Week) are helping out making a base for our reactive lamps in the electronic arts workshop — here you can see the base they are designing to fit the electronics components, while also fitting either a mason jar or an acrylic cylinder…printed out using a 3D printer!

Close up of main light casing.

Close up of main light casing.

Mason jar with light casing and blue light.

Mason jar with light casing and blue light.

Light casing, made from three separate pieces.

Light casing, made from three separate pieces.

Light casing, assembled, made from 3D printer

Light casing, assembled, made from 3D printer

Electronics components, soldered together

Electronics components, soldered together

Video of light casing inserted into acrylic cylinder

Video of light casing in mason jar with sample animations

For the kids: Fairy Wands and Wizard Sticks

On Saturday afternoon we’ll be introducing some of the younger kids to the joys of LEDs by having them make fairy wands or wizard sticks out of an RGB LED and a switch (to change colors) attached to a stick, which they can then decorate. Once made they’ll be able to run around at dusk making light patterns in the air.  This workshop will probably be held on Saturday afternoon, 4-5:30.

Here’s one on Instructables for inspiration:

Fairy Staff

Prototyping the Reactive Lamps

We made great progress prototyping the reactive lamp setup we’ll be using for the Electronic Art: Reactive Lamps workshop, including an Arduino, an RGB ring, and a motion detecting sensor. We also had a couple of people go through the sequence of installing the sample software and tweaking it for our setup. We then handed over the electronics to Dan Hull, an industrial designer who’s creating a housing unit for the electronics using a 3D printer.

Prototype of the reactive lamp

Prototype of the reactive lamp

Flora arduino, optimized for wearable projects

Flora arduino, optimized for wearable projects

Sensor/compass, detects movement

Sensor/compass, detects movement

Neopixel Ring (controllable RGB LEDs)

Neopixel Ring (controllable RGB LEDs)